cations. do not use if you have prostate or breast cancer. serious side effects could include increased risk of prostate cancer; worsening prostate symptoms; decreased sperm count; ankle, feet, or body swelling; enlarged or painful breasts; problems breathing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa. see your doctor, and for a 30-day free trial, go to axiron.com. good wednesday morning. i'm chris jansing. today, president obama makes it official. he is gambling some of his second term capital on what's being called a surprisingly bold set of proposals to fight gun violence. he'll make the announcement with vice president biden just before noon, surrounded by children who wrote them letters after the newtown school shooting. nbc news has also learned that newtown families will be at the white house today. but just hours before the event,

the national rifle association cited the president's daughters, sasha and malia, in an ad attacking the president as an elitist hypocrite on guns. >> are the president's kids more important than yours? then why is he skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are protected by armed guards at their school? mr. obama demands the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, but he's just another elitist hypocrite when it comes to a fair share of security. >> joining me now is susan page, washington bureau chief for "usa today" and ron fournier, national correspondent and editorial director for the "national journal." good morning. >> good morning. >> morning. >> so the president's children, doesn't matter, republican, democrat, are generally considered off-limits. ron, what do you make of this nra ad? >> they really blew it. this is an organization that has a lot of power and a lot of credibility and has a legitimate purpose in our society to

protect the second amendment but why would you put out an ad like that that is false? the president is not opposed to security in the schools. he does not -- in fact, we have a lot of schools in this country that already have security. he just doesn't think that arming guards in schools is the only answer to cracking down on school shooting. it's just a cringe-worthy exploitive ad that undermines the nra, undermines the cause and frankly, if you are a second amendment supporter, a gun advocate, i would think you feel ill-served by your organization this morning. >> they're taking a lot of heat over it. ten minutes ago we got a statement from the nra defending this ad, saying in part whoever thinks the ad is about president obama's daughters are missing the point completely or they're trying to change the subject. this ad is about keeping our children safe. it goes on to say later this is the real issue, anything else is an attempted calculated distraction. susan, how is this likely to play into the debate? >> i think this is a very risky move by the nra. they have taken a pretty hard

line, you know, that news conference with wayne lapierre and in their comments since, and ron's covered a lot of campaigns, as have i. i think this may be the toughest, not quite sure what the right word is, edgeiest ad i have seen by a mainstream advocacy group or political campaign in my memory, because we do think of the kids of the president as being largely off-limits. the obamas don't put them forward in this debate and i think that probably makes a lot of americans uncomfortable. if they wanted attention, well, they succeeded in that. >> well, meantime, the president is going to announce several proposals for congress to consider. among them, universal background checks on gun buyers anywhere, including trade shows, harsher penalties for gun sellers who don't do those checks, a ban on high capacity ammunition magazines and that renewed assault weapons ban. i'm wondering, ron, is this a liberal base wish list or is the president going to fight this the way he did health care, try

to make it sort of the defining moment for his second term? >> that's definitely the liberal wish list. my guess is he's going to fight for this. this is one of those defining issues that he could make a big difference on. it's going to be tough, though. the public is largely in favor of a background check, largely in favor of abandoning the high quantity ammunition jackets. they're pretty much split on assault weapon ban, although newtown kind of moved that number just to the north of 50% in most polls. so it's going to be tough. it will be interesting to see what some of the red state democrats like david prior in arkansas, how they come down on this. my guess is it will be awfully hard to get much of this through this polarized congress. >> the question is, what methods will the president use. on "morning joe" today, senior obama campaign advisor robert gibbs suggested that getting meaningful legislation passed is going to be a long slog, but that the white house has talked about getting his election

apparatus involved in this fight. let's listen. >> the president has the most exciting campaign apparatus ever built. it's time to turn that loose. it's time to turn that loose for something more than just an election, right? if the nra's got a list, then obama for america has a bigger list and it is time to get activated again. >> so susan, he's surrounding himself with kids today, new winewtown families are going to be here, very powerful image. he still has the inaugural address, the state of the union. how much is the white house going to depend on public pressure swaying congress to get some of this passed? >> well, i think that the president will do some things by executive action, that will maybe not go as far as some gun control advocates like but i am not convinced this will be the health care initiative of his second term. i think immigration is more

likely, comprehensive immigration overhaul is more likely to be the thing the administration, the president puts as his first priority of his second term, and something that is probably more doable than assault weapons ban. we know that on universal background checks in particular, there is really broad public support. 85% in the pew research center poll that came out this week, including 85% of gun owners, supported universal background checks. but on some of these other things, the politics of the republican party, the politics of house republicans in particular, i think makes some of these gun proposals a really tough fight to get through congress. >> governor cuomo in new york signed sweeping legislation yesterday that's being called the strictest on gun control in the nation, and here's what he said after signing it. >> let's at least learn from what's happened. let's at least be able to say to people yes, we went through terrible situations, but we saw, we learned, we responded, and we acted and we are doing something about it. we are not victims.

>> no one, not even prominent gun control advocate caroline mccarthy, thinks a broad assault weapons ban is going to happen here, ron, but there is some hope. people are talking about the high capacity clips, mental health reform, universal background checks. realistically, how much of this is likely to get done? >> i agree with susan, it's not as likely having a broad package as she suggests on immigration. but i would like to go back to what robert gibbs said about turning loose the barack obama mailing list. that's a significant threat. that's one thing we didn't see the first time, the president mobilizing his election apparatus behind his agenda. he certainly didn't do it with health care reform which is one reason why it's still relatively unpopular. they are throwing down the gauntlet and saying we will put our list against nra's list and see what happens, that's a significant development. be fascinating to see if it is able to sway any votes in the

house and senate. especially among the conservative democrats. >> ron, susan, hang on. it's not just some states, we saw what happened in new york, that are trying to take action on gun control while the federal government decides what's going to happen here. westin, just about 20 miles from newtown, drafted a proposal in their town that includes banning automatic assault weapons and high capacity magazines, it would require safe and secure storage of weapons when they're not being used, and also, the registration of all firearms in town. but now that plan seems to be on hold. joining me now is republican selectman dennis tracy, who serves on the board in westin and you were one of the authors of this as well. good morning. >> good morning. >> you did help write these proposals so why are they being sort of put on the back burner now? >> well, after the newtown shooting we really thought it was important to start a community conversation about whether there were things we needed to do within our town to help with the safety of our citizens, and we developed these

proposals as a subject to talk about. since we developed them, there have been a number of announcements of broader initiatives, including the one that the president is about to announce today, and most of the things that can be helpful in this area are better done on the national or state level, and so we thought it would be useful to watch and see what they have to do before we move forward. >> is there a value, though, especially for a community that is so close to newtown, in sort of saying this is important to us and setting an example and maybe having some influence on the broader debate, the state-wide debate or the national debate? >> well, we were very deeply impacted by newtown. as you said, we're 20 miles away. some of our police were first responders there. they came back devastated. so that was the reason that we started this conversation and we're going to continue this conversation. and we do think it's important as selectmen to make sure that

we're doing the best for the security in our town. >> earlier this week, we know that there were some reports that there was some push-back. this is how the nra reacted to those proposed gun restrictions. westin and surrounding communities needs to remain vigilant and continue to contact town selectmen until they permanently reject the severe encroachment on our rights to keep and bear arms. there had also been some reports about names and addresses being published, about threats that were made. did that indeed happen, how much pressure has been put to bear on the selectmen and other people who are involved in this discussion in your town? >> well, we were pretty surprised. this was a conversation about what to do within our town's borders, and it was a nonpartisan conversation that had nothing to do with party. it was not an anti-gun conversation. there are gun owners, responsible gun owners, in westin who are involved in the conversation. and then we got significant pressure from outside, which was

really surprising, including outside groups posting our names and personal information on their websites. we've gotten e-mails and phone calls at our homes from all over the country, alaska, california, from people who really don't care about the people of our town but really have an agenda to push and are trying to put pressure on us to stop our rational conversation. >> were people afraid? you say you were surprised but were people also angry? were people really concerned? >> there is concern. there have been some veiled physical threats which we have dealt with with our police force but that's not going to change what we do. we're going to move forward in the way we think appropriate regardless of the threats. the other threats we've gotten from people is that outside of westin is that they will sue us no matter what ordinance we pass, and that is something we have to consider, because we're

a small town. we have limited financial resources and the outside lobbying groups have unlimited financial resources. so we have to be careful what we do in our town to make sure that we're financially responsible. >> well, we are going to continue to follow this. dennis, it was really good of you to come in. thank you very much. ron, i just want to get your reaction to what you heard. this is sort of a view of where in some cases, this conversation is going. here's a town that's talking about doing something in a bipartisan manner. mr. tracey is a republican and the town feels threatened. >> that's kind of indicative of what's going on in this country on many issues. the public and people at the local level are tired of nothing happening in washington, except gridlock and name calling, and they're taking action in their own hands. unfortunately on this issue, on gun control, or any kind of regulation of firearms, it's almost impossible really to make a difference unless it's done at

the federal level because the guns and ammunition move back and forth across borders. >> the gun issue is expected to be raised, susan, at the republican retreat which is going to happen i guess later this week in virginia. gabby giffords, we just learned this this morning, says she will make one-on-one visits with her husband to individual members of congress to try to lobby for some of these proposals, and of course, as we mentioned earlier, the president will have the optics of being surrounded by children and the families of the newtown victims. but is it possible to even sort of figure out at this point if and how and where this truly gets decided or is it already decided? i mean, it is a month after newtown, are minds not going to change? >> you know, there are a couple things that have the potential to make the kind of predictable landscape on this change. gabby giffords is one. just her personal story is one that's very compelling. mayor bloomberg in new york is putting a lot of money and his stature as a very independent voice behind this, and then of course, you have the memories of

newtown for all of us. that i think has at least the potential to change what we expect to happen in washington. and you know, ron mentioned the obama campaign organization. that surprised a lot of us, myself included, by the way they will be able to deliver voters to the polls in november with a turnout that we didn't expect among young people and african-americans and others so maybe we'll be surprised. >> susan page, ron fournier, thank you so much. appreciate you coming in. we also have congressman chris van hollen who will be coming up after the break to answer that question, what we expect to happen. we will have that just coming up. and in other news, we could finally start seeing some aid flowing to the victims of hurricane sandy. 79 days after the storm. the much debated, much delayed $50 billion bill passed the house last night with just 49 republican votes as conservatives continue to question where the money's coming from. new york, new jersey and connecticut's governors released this statement. the tradition of congress being there and providing support for americans during times of

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we are continuing our discussion on gun control as we get closer to president obama's announcement today, just before noon. he has several proposals he wants to go through congress, but what are the chances they'll pass? let me bring in democratic congressman chris van hollen of maryland. it's always good to see you, congressman. good morning. >> good to be with you, chris. >> one of the headlines in politico today is why obama's gun plan may be d.o.a. in the house. the article says quote, interviews with multiple house republicans from the midwest and northeast reveal almost zero appetite to vote on any sort of sweeping gun bill, and that may leave the president with few options besides focusing on background checks and what he

can accomplish by executive action. i'm wondering what you're hearing and what your sense is of how things are in the house right now. >> well, chris, i think a lot of these early predictions of the demise of the president's proposals are very premature. i think the politics of this has changed and i think the politics is changing because the american public is engaging in this conversation in a very different way than they used to, after the newtown shootings, the aurora shootings. as long as the public is engaged and following closely what the specific proposals the president is making are all about, very common sense proposals, then i think we have a very decent chance. if the public tunes out and, you know, the washington gun lobby is successful at scaring responsible gun owners into thinking these common sense steps are just the precursor to people coming to take away their guns which is of course, nonsense, but if that were to happen, then we would have a problem. so the key is this has got to be

a grassroots conversation throughout the country. this cannot just be a washington focused conversation, because if that happens, then some of the special interests will triumph. so the key is to keep the public engaged and focused on the very specific proposals the president is making which i think everybody will agree are common sense. >> the nra of course does have its own constituency and they have shown just how tough they plan to be on all this. i'm sure you've seen this nra ad that mentions the president's kids. they also have that app that uses an ak-47 to shoot targets shaped like coffins. in fact, there was such a push-back against this app because it was recommended for kids 4 and older that they have changed it to kids 12 and older. but even though it's early and all this is just sort of happening over the last 24 hours or so, congressman, do you see any indication on the hill that this could hurt the nra or affect its influence? >> well, chris, i do think that these strategies the nra is pursuing are going to backfire

on them. they may be very popular with the very sort of -- the base base of the nra but all the public polling i've seen shows that there are lots of nra members who actually support the kind of common sense proposals the president is making. the reason the nra has been able to get away with these scare tactics in the past is that we've not had a national conversation about this. so they have fooled their members into thinking that some of these common sense steps like universal background checks, to make sure that people who have criminal records or who have been found to be mentally unstable, can't get access to a gun. they fooled their members into thinking that those kind of measures are the first step toward the con fiscation of all guns. just not true. that kind of scare tactic works when they are able to deal just within the washington bubble but it doesn't work when we have a national conversation which is why it's so important as the president has said that the

american public really follow this debate closely and separate scare tactics from common sense. for example, this nra ad suggesting that the president doesn't want other people's kids to have security in school, just nonsense. the president's proposal will include a stronger school security element. it will include an element about strengthening the mental health system but it will also include common sense gun safety measures, universal background checks, limits on the magazine capacity of some of these guns so that you can't just fire off, you know, 20, 30 rounds at once and kill lots of people. >> i'm wondering if you think those are the areas where there is most likely to be movement. harry reid has said he's not going to bring anything up in the senate that can't get through the house on your side. steny hoyer isn't sounding optimistic about an assault weapons ban. what's your assessment right

now? what's realistic here? >> my assessment is that we should push forward on everything that makes sense from a public safety perspective and let the politics work itself out. but the american public deserves an up or down vote on these issues in the house of representatives. if people want to vote against some of these common sense measures, that's fine, but let the voters hold them accountable. so what we're going to be asking for here in the house of representatives is simply the opportunity to have a vote, let the american people see how their representatives stand on some of these important issues, because as i said earlier, i think the vast majority of the american people support these common sense steps and that's the one way to hold members of congress accountable. put it to the test, put it to a vote. don't say in advance that because these things may not get a majority vote, we won't even bring it to a vote. well, the one way to test whether or not these things have majority support, chris, is to have a vote.

>> congressman chris van hollen, again, always good to have you on the program. the obama administration is thinking about getting more involved in what's happening in mali. west african troops are on the way and french troops are already on the ground, fighting al qaeda militants in that west african nation. the fear is the country could become a haven for terrorists. the white house confirms they are already helping by sharing intelligence and surveillance, but secretary of defense leon panetta was clear about one thing. >> there is no consideration of putting any american boots on the ground at this time. the usual, bob? not today. [ male announcer ] bob has afib: atrial fibrillation not caused by a heart valve problem, a condition that puts him at greater risk for a stroke. [ gps ] turn left. i don't think so. [ male announcer ] for years, bob took warfarin, and made a monthly trip to the clinic to get his blood tested. but not anymore.

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the white house is quadrupling the number of signatures needed for a response on its we the people site. now petitions have to have 100,000 signatures in 30 days. the administration has recently given responses to petitions ranging from those asking to secede from the union to urging the construction of a death star. a new business in utah is making news. george burnett's i love drilling juice and smoothie bar charges liberals a dollar more than conservatives. >> i'm very open about it, very public about it. i'm going to charge them a little bit more and i have liberals come in, and pay the extra dollar surcharge. finally, "saturday night live" star seth myers is nominating hillary clinton as one of gq's 100 hottest women of the 21st century, saying she gets sexier every year. if you read one thing this morning, my must-read comes courtesy of "atlantic" magazine.

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happier than eddie money running a travel agency. get happy. get geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. there is going to be another departure from the obama cabinet. it is now confirmed that interior secretary ken salazar will step down in march. joining hillary clinton, leon panetta, tim geithner and hilda solis all heading for the exit. in a statement just released from the white house, the president said quote, i want to thank ken for his hard work and leadership on behalf of the american people. as the secretary of the interior, ken has helped usher in a new era of conservation for our nation's land, water and wildlife. meantime, just hours after the president's defense secretary pick, chuck hagel, got a boost from senator chuck shumer, another key senator, republican james inhofe, announced he has too many philosophical differences with him to support the nomination. let's bring in former pennsylvania governor ed rendell

and alfonso aguilar, executive director of the latino partnership for conservative principles and former chief of the office of citizenship. good to see both of you. good morning. >> thank you for having us. >> a few weeks ago, senator inhofe praised chuck hagel but in a statement, says he has concerns about his positions on israel, iran and the sequester. what do you make of that? >> it's hard to fathom anything that goes on in washington these days, chris. you have john mccain in 2006 saying chuck hagel would make a great secretary of state and then he and lindsay graham are expressing those same doubts. it's all hypocrisy. if barack obama appointed the greatest woman that ever lived to a position, i think half the republican caucus would be against it. but chuck hagel's going to pass. chuck schumer's declaration was crucial. the only way chuck hagel would run into trouble is if there were significant democratic defections and i think chuck schumer is a leader and his statement makes it clear that won't happen. >> there is a new poll out that

shows most americans support chuck hagel's nomination even though 33% had no opinion, i think for a defense secretary post. that's a pretty high recognition factor. what do you think's going to happen here? >> well, i agree with the governor. chuck hagel will be confirmed. he has the relations in the senate. i think the support from chuck schumer is -- was key. but i think at the same time, it's fair to raise questions about the comments he's made about israel, about his oppositions to sanctions towards iran, his comments about negotiating with hamas. those are very valid questions that republicans need to ask. >> also, the president still needs to pick his chief of staff. critically important position, as you both know. here's a couple of the main candidates. deputy national security advisor dennis mcdonough and former biden chief of staff, ron clain, said to be the top two. what do you think the president's choice will eventually say about i guess his management style, but also how

he intends to sort of negotiate this second term? there have been a bunch of articles today suggesting it's very tough to do as well in a second term as you do in a first term. >> well, it is, but that can change with the context of the time, the environment the president and the congress is presented with, and there are so many serious challenges facing the american people. if the president can find a way with his own involvement and then with his staff's of bridging the gap between himself and the republicans in the congress to get things done on our debt, on guns, on immigration, on the environment, on energy, on education, he can go down as a great second term president. he's got a great opportunity. but he's got to get personally involved in the process itself, and he's got to understand where the other side is coming from and he's got to try to accommodate some of their concerns. and if he does that, i think he can be a great second term president and have a better

second term than his first. >> we got a lot of indications about what he was thinking about in his last news conference of the first term this week, and he answered critics who talked about the lack of diversity in his new cabinet, but they are losing another minority, obviously, with the departure of ken salazar as interior secretaries. three other secretaries haven't been announced either in terms of what they're doing, whether they're going to stay or go. what do you think? do you think the president needs to beef up the diversity in the second term cabinet? >> look, i'm not going to criticize the president on this one. i think he's shown his commitment to diversity. diversity is very important, but at the end for the president, the first and foremost consideration in terms of his appointments to the cabinet is appointing people who he thinks are capable, have experience and he trusts and feels comfortable with. and on many occasions it's going to be minorities, but i think judging his commitment to

diversity by the percentage -- by percentages of minorities in his cabinet, i think it's a little bit simplistic. >> gentlemen, good to see you. thank you. >> thanks, chris. making news this morning, witnesses say it looked like a fireball exploding on the streets of central london today. take a look at this new amateur video. this is after a helicopter crashed into a crane and fell on to a crowded street. the pilot and one person on the ground are dead. 11 more are hurt. another witness saw the flames and feared it was a terror attack. treasury secretary tim geithner is borrowing from the federal employee pension fund to keep the government operating without hitting the debt ceiling. geithner says he will replace the money, about $156 billion, once the debt limit is raised. it should not jeopardize monthly pension payments. the world anti-doping agency says if lance armstrong wants to compete, he'll have to testify under oath. in a tell-all interview with oprah airing tonight, armstrong

admits to doping. we're also hearing from the livestrong foundation which said in a statement, we expect lance to be completely truthful and forthcoming in his interview and with all of us in the cancer community. inspired by the people with cancer whom we serve, we feel confident and optimistic about the foundation's future and welcome an end to speculation. just moments ago, look at this, crews rescued a woman who had been trapped for several hours in between buildings in portland, oregon. she apparently went out for a smoke break and somehow fell into a tight space between those buildings. firefighters actually had to cut through a wall of a parking garage to get her out. she was smiling, though when she was pulled out. japan's top two airlines clipped the wings of the problem-plagued dreamliner. michele caruso-cabrera is here on what's new with your money. the airlines have grounded all of their 787s after that dreamliner had to make an emergency landing overnight. what's the sense?

how serious a problem is this? >> this is getting very serious, chris, because first of all, we just learned that the national transportation safety board here in the u.s. is going to send over an american representative to look into that investigation as well and the other reason it's serious is because this is part of a series of incidents involving this brand new plane which is supposed to be the big hope for boeing. it's technologically advanced, put together in a way we haven't seen before with airplanes but it's had a number of incidents just in the last couple weeks that have led to planes not being able to take off, this emergency landing as you see. so analysts are starting to get worried. we'll have to take a closer look. all the problems have not been the same each time, but still, the stock is now down about 4% today. >> let me ask you about facebook because yesterday, we were waiting for the announcement. now they have come out with their next big thing. what's the reaction? >> it's kind of mixed. it's made the front page of a lot of the business newspapers because they see it as a competitor to google because you will be able to search, but specifically within your group

of friends what they think, you know, if you want to search for a dentist, maybe your friends like the dentist so that name is going to pop up. it's really unclear, though, whether or not they'll be able to monetize search which means are they going to be able to get paid for anything they do here, and it hasn't officially launched yet. we have to see how it goes. but the reaction has been mixed. >> michelle caruso-cabrera, thank you. you'll want to look, not just listen, to town and country's top bachelors list. here are some of our favorites. recently i was hanging out with number 17, tim tebow. of course, the quarterback who is going to play somewhere else next year. another athlete at number 11, former knick turned rocket, jeremy lin. jon favreau comes in at five. number three has a very famous dad. this is andrew lauren, son of designer ralph lauren. but everybody knows number one. prince harry, the most eligible

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mom, are those my jeans? [ female announcer ] people who choose more whole grain tend to weigh less than those who don't. multigrain cheerios does the winter put you in a negative mood? if so, you're not alone. seasonal affective disorder which affects one in five americans usually occurs in the winter months and symptoms include sleepiness, social withdrawal and poor concentration. professional help may be needed for extreme cases, but doctors say for most, the symptoms will subside in a few short months. inauguration preparations have kicked into high gear, four days away from president obama's second swearing in. this morning, new details and

some new controversies. after growing pressure from d.c. officials, the white house now says it plans to use the district's taxation without representation license plates on president obama's limousine, and the inaugural committee has chosen a new pastor. reverend luis leon has been invited to replace the former reverend, who backed out after remarks he made about homosexuality. but for all the fun and festivities, let's bring in senior political reporter for politico, lois romano, whose article details this year's inauguration. good to see you. you interviewed steve kerrigan, the guy in charge of the inauguration committee. you write that his mandate is to create an event with less dazzle, celebrity and hysteria that defined the first inauguration. how does he do that? >> well, the first thing you do is announce that there's only two balls, and that the president's really going to be spending his time laying wreaths at arlington and doing days of

service and you know, encourage people around the country to do their days of service. he got a lot of push-back from that and so now they're explaining that it's not exactly two balls, it's more like six because it's in the convention center which can house 35,000, 40,000 people. >> in fact, they are expecting 40,000. you write one of the best-kept secrets in town is that the one public inaugural ball will be a doozy, with upward of 40,000 partying in a single bachanalia under one roof at the washington convention center. anybody can go? >> no. believe it or not, 35,000, 40,000 tickets are still being farmed out. there are hundreds of thousands of people that would like to go to this and in fact, a lot of campaign workers who had given their time feel like they are getting a little bit of the shaft. they were told that they could get in, but they can't, and so

these tickets are being held pretty close. they're not exactly sure of the number. the convention center can hold 42,000 people but they have to build some stages so it's somewhere between 35,000 and 40,000 but a lot of people are going to be left out in the cold and it will be cold that day. >> it is going to be very, very cold. so they were already expecting smaller crowds which is not atypical for a second inauguration but what they're saying, 40 degrees will be the high. >> that's not bad, though. >> if you have to stand outside for four or five, six hours, it does get to be a bit much. talk about who's going to be there. who are some of the celebrities, some of the performers? >> well, there's a big list of performers. john legend, stevie wonder. there is beyonce, mariah carey. they are kind of being farmed out in different ways. i believe beyonce is going to be at the actual swearing in, and then a whole lot of other people, usher, katie perry are sharing a couple official

events. one is the concert for the children of military people. a lot of military-driven events. then at this ball which is really six balls, there will be a lot of different entertainment turning over, and i couldn't find out, the president and first lady usually will go to ten different balls, they will get in the car and drive, have one dance and leave, but i couldn't quite figure out if this means they will stay longer at the convention center, but one little funny factoid about the convention center is that it is so big that to move the president and first lady from one end to the other, they actually have to go downstairs, get in the official car and drive to the other side of the convention center. they could not walk them through which is very funny. >> i assume that the first lady's going to have this fabulous gown which are never easy to walk in anyway. let's talk about cost, because that's always -- doesn't matter what inauguration it is, people complain too much money is spent. they said less money would be spent, they said maybe they haven't quite reached their fund-raising goals.

where are we on all that? >> they are down. you know, i think they are going to spend less because they're making it smaller, but the one thing that's very interesting is that for the first time, the president has allowed corporate, unlimited corporate money to be donated. you know, he wouldn't do that in the last inaugural and he would not do that at the convention, but even with that, the money is very slow to be coming in. i think they wanted to raise $40 million to $50 million. i'm told they're at about $30 million. i don't know what they're going to do about that shortfall. they've created these packages for individuals and for corporations, and i'm told that the corporate ones aren't really doing that well. they could be half a million or a million but they're not really flying off the shelves, as i said. >> we are all waiting excitedly to see this second inauguration. thank you so much for coming on the program. >> thank you. today's tweet of the day comes from the national archives. inauguration fact, visitors could come into the white house

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8,000 new york city school bus drivers started striking today. parents of more than a million new york city students scrambled to find another way to get their kids to school through rain and sleet. the fight is over a job protection clause that the city removed from newly bid out contracts. a man and woman are dead and the teenager hurt after a shooting in the parking lot of a kentucky community college. police say the suspect turned himself in and that the altercation appears to have started as a domestic dispute. in the meantime, we continue the gun debate. nra lobbyists are out in force on capitol hill getting ready to pressure lawmakers to vote against any new gun proposals that will be outlined by the president about an hour from

now. over the years, the nra has had a major influence on congress. richard lui is here with the drill-down. it's amazing how far, how wide the influence is in places you wouldn't expect. >> and deep and small and large, as many ways as you want to describe it. gun control advocates point to the nation's symbol of freedom as proof of how deep the nra's power reaches. the center for biological diversity says numerous studies show the bald eagle along with 74 other bird species have been poisoned by lead from spent ammunition. now, lead shotgun pellets are found in fields or animals killed by guns have been discovered in bird's gizzards. the epa has been asked to ban lead from ammunition because of high numbers of bird deaths related to lead poisoning but the nra disagreed and successfully lobbied the epa to stop short its investigation and then reject the ban, saying it was a back door attempt at limiting hunting and gun control.

a 2005 law underlines this aspect of the gun industry's franchise. it immunized the gun industry from any lawsuit related to crimes involving a firearm and in fact, it is the only u.s. consumer product not subject to federal safety regulations. another little known victory for the nra was tucked into credit card rules signed into law in 2009. as part of negotiations for that law, it allows guns at national parks and though these laws are not landmark, the 1997 brady bill supreme court decision was. >> in the process, they cut back federal power, gave the states a boost and the law named after the wounded presidential press secretary looks a lot different tonight than when it was first passed. >> now, the lobby money spent by the nra partly explains its success over the brady campaign. over the last decade, they have outspent the leading gun control group ten to one according to "usa today" . that includes millions to law

makers. that's why they are also lobbying to stop any rules that could stop them, including campaign finance reform. >> campaign finance reform. >> the biggest of all. >> they don't want anything that will abridge their rights to free speech. >> going on for decades, too. >> unbelievable. thank you so much. that will wrap up this hour of "jansing and company." thomas roberts is up next. good morning, everybody. the agenda next hour, it's a big one. president obama goes big on gun control. based on the suggestions of the vice president's gun task force, serious changes are coming but does the president have the congress behind him and most insiders on this one say no. so how much political capital is the president willing to spend? congressman james clyburn will join me. meanwhile, the nra throws a preemptive volley straight at the president and the first family in a new ad, basically calling the president a hypocrite because the first daughters have armed security at their school. and new york state among the first to pass some of the toughest new gun legislation in the country, and done with

bipartisan support. so how did governor andrew cuomo get it done? that and much more at the top of the hour. come between us and what we love. so if you're one of them people who gets heartburn and then treats day after day... block the acid with prilosec otc and don't get heartburn in the first place! [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. yeah we both relieve coughs, sneezing, aches, fevers. and i relieve nasal congestion. overachiever. [ female announcer ] tylenol® cold multi-symptom nighttime relieves nasal congestion. nyquil® cold and flu doesn't.

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